Dear Mr. Bezos,
Recently news media have begun reporting on a group of individuals called Anonymous who have targeted the Church of Scientology for a public campaign of information-sharing across the internet. Part of this campaign spilled over to your site and to reviews of the CoS' main "bible," Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. What was originally several hundred favorable reviews of the book were offset by several hundred equally well-written and thought out negative reviews advising potential buyers to the numerous and well-reported realities of the "Church."
All but four of those negative reviews have been removed suddenly, leaving the overwhelming level of positive ones untouched.
While I could understand deleting these reviews if they were simply one-star, one line comments of "This sucks," or if they were left by individuals using the same computer, IP address or network, browsing the reviews returned page after page of non-inflammatory, non-harassing and ultimately well thought out comments about the book well within your Terms of Service. As to the latter point I would assume your website would have the technological capabilities to remove and filter out such reviews before they were published in the first place.
As such I can only surmise, as no doubt many others also have, that Amazon.com took it upon themselves to remove legitimately critical reviews of the book under pressure from individuals of the Church of Scientology. Given the very public scrutiny that Anonymous' campaign has generated, and the fact that none of the reviews went against your review guidelines, and that every review had to be published by a legitimate Amazon.com account registered with your site, there is ultimately little way for you to determine they were a part of this campaign or merely posted by legitimate users who were made cognizant of Scientology because of media/news activity and took it upon themselves to review the book without ulterior motivation.
It is immensely chilling that one organization has enough power to control your site and your business. What's to stop a political group from having negative reviews of former presidents' biographies removed? What's to stop cult leaders from pressuring you to remove warnings by former members and family members? What's to stop a business from demanding favorable reviews of competing products be removed? Where does the objectivity end and how can any customer not feel now that your review system is little more than propaganda by whomever has the loudest voice?
Ignoring the fact that many countries do not consider the Church of Scientology a religion and refuse to grant them such status, ignoring the fact of their very long trail of lawsuits, intimidation and threats against those who speak out against them, ignoring the numerous criminal incidents their founder and members have been involved in, arrested for and convicted of, your actions raise serious concerns for your customers across the entire spectrum of products you carry.
While I feel that your move was simply temporary oversight without thought to the subsequent extreme damages against freedom of speech, nevertheless it demonstrates a frightening willingness that anyone intending to give money to your business needs to be made aware of. An individual, business or organization should not have the power to determine what content is made available on your site, and they should not be able to determine whether negative content is removed.
As such I call on anyone concerned by this to ultimately strongly reconsider purchasing anything at your site until the legitimate reviews in question are restored and assurances are made that customers, not highly litigious organizations and cults, determine what reviews are made public.
Thank you.
Alternative e-commerce websites:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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